Disaster Management for UPSC Mains

Disaster management and especially crowd disaster management is a very pertinent topic for the UPSC exam as every year in India at least one disaster occurs which could have been prevented had there been better crowd management. Hence, this topic assumes greater importance for the IAS exam. Also, IAS officers are frequently charged with the duty of controlling and managing large crowds as part of their jobs.

What is a Disaster?

Disaster management means a continuous and integrated process of planning, organizing, coordinating and implementing measures that are necessary for:

Prevention of danger or threat to any disaster

Mitigation or reduction of risk of any disaster or its severity or consequences

Capacity-building

Preparedness to deal with any disaster

Prompt response to any threatening disaster

Assessing the magnitude or severity of effects of any disaster

Evacuation, rescue and relief

Rehabilitation and reconstruction

The point to note here is that our organization for managing droughts, ‘ National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has formulated effective guidelines for almost all disasters, however w,e still are in the process of devising a proper strategy for this newly termed crowd disaster. Although crowd disasters are not a new phenomenon, however, they were thought to be of localized nature and hence were not given their due importance. However with the ever increasing population of India, the instances of large masses gathering at places such as shopping malls, religious destinations, railway stations etc. on a daily basis, and the realization that immense amount of destruction of life and national property happen in these mishaps, it has become imperative to devise a national policy in this regard. In this regard, crowd management guidelines have also been shared by the NDMA recently. Crowd disasters are man-made disasters which can be prevented by proper policy making, planning, execution along with well-trained personnel.

Causes of disasters

According to the NDMA, there are six categories into which these causes can be classified:

Structural failures

Fire/ Electricity

Crowd Control

Crowd Behaviour

Security lapses

Lack of Coordination among different stakeholders

NDMA Guidelines for Crowd Management UPSC

Planning the strategy for management

Understanding visitors

Understanding stakeholders

Crowd Management strategies

Capacity planning

Understanding Crowd behavior

Crowd disaster process

Crowd control

Stakeholder approach

Risk analysis and preparedness

Identify threats or causes

Risk assessment

Planning

Develop course of action

Information management and dissemination

Safety and security measures

Medical Emergency Services

Role of Media

Broadly we can categorise the role of media in the following way:

Educational

Critical

Suggestive

Before a disaster:

Bring to the attention of the authorities

Prepare the community and making them aware of Do’s and Don’ts

Keeping a watch on anti-social elements, thereby helping in maintaining the law and order situation